The Verge’s Vlad Savov:
The iPhone’s lead as the smartphone to beat has rarely been defined by just one thing. At one point, the biggest advantage was the simplicity and speed of its interface; at another, it was down to the diversity and quality of available apps; and most recently, the iPhone has distinguished itself with the quality of its 8-megapixel camera. Today, the combination of all these things — simple and fast operation, strong optics and image processing, and a wide app ecosystem — is helping people create the best possible images with the least possible hassle.
While I think the iPhone has the lead over Android in several categories, Savov’s point about the iPhone camera is true:
The effortlessness of taking good pictures with the iPhone is probably that phone’s most underrated quality. And yet, its importance grows with every passing day.
I’m taking a photo a day this year, and while I have a nice Olympus mirrorless camera, I know that shots taken with my iPhone 6 are far beyond “good enough” for my usage.
Apple has cared about photography for a long time (despite what Aperture users may think), and that care is what drives the bar higher and higher when it comes to the iPhone.
Just look at the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. I’m sure it nearly killed some industrial designers at the company to have a protruding camera, but clearly good optics were of a higher priority. I appreciate that, and I think a large portion of the smartphone buying market does, too. It blows my mind that Android OEMs can’t get this right.